READY PLAYER ONE Poster Offers Stylized Take on Cline’s World

Share:

With a reported release date of December 15, 2017 for the Steven Spielberg-directed film adaptation of Ernest Cline’s novel Ready Player One, fans of the dystopian sci-fi adventure clearly have quite some time before they can get their Gunter on as moviegoers. Fortunately, those looking for a dose of the ’80s-pop-culture-infused world of online gaming and virtual reality mayhem can get a quick fix with sweet sweet merch like illustrator Harlan Elam’s latest 12×24″ silkscreen tribute poster.

Elam, who’s a designer at Blizzard Entertainment and member of the “Poster Posse” (“A diverse collective of global artists who create highly desirable art for the movies you are dying to see”), clearly knows his RPO trivia, and has filled his tribute poster with tons of the iconic characters, items, and, of course, giant robots, from the novel. Harlan says of his artistic intent that “[he] wanted the art itself to look like a 3 tiered game inspired by Monument Valley [an electronic puzzle game released in 2013] in order to reflect the core themes of the book.” The result of this goal is a heavily stylized M.C. Escher-esque platform colored in green, blue, yellow, and pink pastels, populated by said icons and set against a backdrop of starry space.

Front and center in the poster is Parzival (a.k.a. Wade Watts) in his VR gear and haptic suit, flanked by what appear to be two Sixers closing in on his position (and considering Parzival has his hands in the air, this perhaps captures the moment when he “surrenders” to IOI). On the two tiers above Parzival and “The Stacks” are everything from the three keys used in Halliday’s egg hunt to Art3mis and Aech to the Joust arcade game that stands between Parzival and the first key to Mechagodzilla and Ultraman facing off like some serious robo-battling is about to go down. The DeLorean from Back to the Future, an X-wing, the Starship Enterprise, and Parzival’s Firefly-class transport ship, “the Vonnegut” all surround the three tiers as well, and make it clear that Elam was looking to jam-pack this poster with as much referential goodness as possible. (You can check out images of the poster in the gallery below.)

If you’re interested in purchasing one of Elam’s Ready Player One posters, you can check out his twitter for more details here. It should be noted that every poster has been signed by Cline himself.

Now that you have all the details regarding Elam’s Ready Player One tribute poster, will you be on standby next Tuesday (December 15th) to grab one, or is this take on Cline’s world not quite your taste? Let us know in the comments section below!